moth 0 #1 January 23, 2005 any one know how much the bpa membership has gone up by? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AudreyRowe 0 #2 January 24, 2005 Six quid a year I think........ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skykittykat 0 #3 January 24, 2005 QuoteSix quid a year I think........ It could've been worse! Liz Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
yoink 321 #4 January 24, 2005 total now is 111 pounds. Raised by 10%... could have been worse, but it will keep going up until there is some competition in insurance underwriters. at the moment only one company will cover us... apparently mainly as a result of experienced vs experienced lawsuits grr Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkymonkeyONE 3 #5 January 24, 2005 111 pounds per YEAR? No way. If so, I feel incredibly sorry for you blokes. That is a LOT of money. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr2mk1g 10 #6 January 24, 2005 Yup - per year. It's the third party liability insurance that's killing us, driven up by skydiver v. skydiver lawsuits. Helpfully the BPA tip for how to help reduce this figure was... get this... "don't fuck up" (paraphrased). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrewwhyte 1 #7 January 24, 2005 In Canada (and the US too, I believe) our insurance doesn't cover member to member claims, nor do we want it to. The waiver prohibits the action and it's a bit of a stretch to convince the court that the experienced jumper didn't understand the risk. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mickb 0 #8 January 25, 2005 Welcome to rip off britain B.P.A. £111.00=$208.802 U.S.P.A. overseas $58.00 = £30.87 U.S.P.A.= worldwide cover B.P.A.= England if your lucky. At least Dick Turpin had the decency to point a gun at your head while he was committing highway robbery. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr2mk1g 10 #9 January 25, 2005 A couple of points on that idea. Waivers don't work in the UK - they're legislated against and I personally wouldn't like to see that change for many more important reasons than just skydiving insurance. If you took away member to member coverage you'd be left to skydive uninsured against what is at the moment, the greatest source of litigation in the industry. I'm sure plenty of people would be willing to take that risk... but remember a payout in a skydiving claim has the potential to take away everything you have... you may end up broke even if you win. Having sat in on the insurance open forum at the AGM, it's also pretty clear that the option of obtaining similar private insurance cover would not be open to us. No one in the industry wants to bother with private customers – not even the one and only company that’s currently willing to cover the BPA – it’s simply too much hassle to deal with individuals. The other problem is that removing insurance from member to member claims wouldn't necessarily reduce the potential liability of the BPA itself. Lawsuits go after the money - a poor skydiver with no insurance is often not worth suing. Thus the lawsuit would target those areas that are still insured - such as the training syllabus, the training itself, the airplane owner, the DZ – whoever they can bring in. All of these would still be covered by the BPA insurance and as such the potential liability might not be seen to actually reduce. If the potential liability isn’t reduced, the cost of BPA insurance won’t come down either. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
britboynz 0 #10 January 25, 2005 Yeowch. Another (albeit small) nail in the coffin of the idea I had of moving back to the UK for a few years. UK = Crap weather, crap DZ's (based on what people have said on this forum), ridiculous BPA fees. I'll stick to jumpin down under. NZPF annual membership = NZ$75 or a mere 28quid. Wouldn't suprise me if it gets to 150quid before anything happens/anyone does anything about it. Russ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sen.Blutarsky 0 #11 January 25, 2005 QuoteWaivers don't work in the UK - they're legislated against ... Per chance, do you have the specific legislation that addresses the waiver issue? Or, is this simply a matter of limey common law and the courts are refusing to enforce the waivers? It seems quite odd that responsible parties cannot contract away risk, especially given the non-essential nature of skydiving participation. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr2mk1g 10 #12 January 25, 2005 s.2 of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 prevents a person from attempting to exclude or limit their liability for causing death or personal injury arising out of negligence. It further states that exclusion of liability in relation to other losses must be reasonable. IIRC the section also provides that knowledge of any such disclaimer or notice pertaining to risk does not, in itself, amount to evidence of volenti which can also be an important element of skydiving litigation. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sen.Blutarsky 0 #13 January 25, 2005 I don't wish to hijack the thread so I'll explore my thoughts on the matter elsewhere. But, chrikey, you're paying a lot of quid for something that doesn't inure directly to the benefit of the BPA membership. That could make me want to chunnel over and jump the continent, if you know what I mean. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
usskydiver 0 #14 January 25, 2005 Quote111 pounds per YEAR? No way. If so, I feel incredibly sorry for you blokes. That is a LOT of money. No shit! I still maintain mine and it hurts to write down my credit card number every year. TT Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr2mk1g 10 #15 January 25, 2005 I don't think that your thoughts are a hijack exactly. You’ve raised what is always the central question about BPA membership costs, thus it's entirely relevant. I'm sure that's what the original poster had in mind. Quoteyou're paying a lot of quid for something that doesn't inure directly to the benefit of the BPA membership Well it is to our benefit; by far the biggest slice of the fee buys a substantial amount of third party liability cover - cover I doubt we would be able to obtain anywhere else. Whether or not people would prefer to make that choice themselves is another matter. I presume there are some who would prefer to forgo the benefit of insurance and take the risk. The other point, as I indicated above, is that it is likely that even if third party liability cover for individual members was removed, there could still be the same liability exposure for other elements of the sport, as lawsuits would seek to include whatever insured party they could find. Thus our total skydiving outlay would stay the same – ie parties such as DZ’s would seek their own insurance and pass that cost on to individual skydivers in the form of increased ticket prices... that’s if they could get the insurance of course. Whether or not having a cohort of skydivers who are uninsured would be a particularly good idea for the sport as a whole is also a matter I ponder. Would we see the BPA’s permission to conduct skydiving operations under threat after the first whuffo is killed by a skydiver without insurance? Would we see the threat of government or CAA intervention to force us to insure to cover the grieving orphans? I simply don’t know enough about the behind-the-scene politics to know what other considerations there might be... Quote That could make me want to chunnel over and jump the continent Many people are doing just that. I know there are numerous jumpers who have become holiday skydivers only after taking the view that a 150% rise in insurance costs were not worth their while. BPA membership is noticeably down this year… I wonder how much of that can be accounted for by jumpers only skydiving abroad? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrewwhyte 1 #16 January 25, 2005 QuoteA couple of points on that idea. Waivers don't work in the UK - they're legislated against and I personally wouldn't like to see that change for many more important reasons than just skydiving insurance. Quote Really?? I would be very curious to hear an elaboration. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Jumpmunki 0 #17 January 25, 2005 well i'm not going to renew my membership this year, i'm going to jump when i go abroad, i think i'll be moving to america, getting USPA membership then "visiting the uk" for a while" i also think they should make the "MAG" from the membership an option, i personnally think it's a waste of money while we're on the subject of membership. the BPA has failed on more than one occasion to provide Deaf Interpreters for the AGM and other events organised by them. This means that the deaf uk skydiving community is paying out that same as hearing members but can't simply attend the AGM seminars etc. essentially all they are getting for there money is a mag and insurance. it boils my piss to see so much money pumped into a website (which i personnally could have done a better job on) and a display for in the BPA office, when all they had to do was pay a couple of interpreters about £300 for a one off to keep the deaf skydiving community upto date with what is happening. they pay there money, they should get exactly the same as you or I do from the bpa. the bpa in my opinion is getting far too cocky increasing it's charges for compulsary membership. when you look at the cost of joining the USPA compared to ours.......... it's a joke..... yes and before people start, i KNOW it's the insurance premium that has gone up.... not eh membership part....... but as soon as the insurance company realise they are our only hope they'll keep fucking us over every year putting the price up and up and up... it's a piss take Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites cpoxon 0 #18 January 26, 2005 Your attitude "boils my piss"! If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. You need to get your priorities straight. You bitch about the BPA not paying out for expensive services for the benefit of 3 (?) members, yet you want to take action that would be to the detriment to all skydivers in the UK (not being a member of the BPA or opting out of the magazine makes it more expensive for the rest of us). With regards to the interpreters, this is from the minutes of the Council meeting held on the 19th of October 2004: Quote63/04 Sign interpreters at the AGM 2005 The Office had reported that no offers to provide a sign interpretation service at the AGM had come forward in response to the calls made in the August and October Magazines and on the BPA website. A letter of caution from a sign interpreter was summarised, which highlighted the high-level signing skills that would be necessary for an event such as the AGM and that it was, in her informed view, better not to provide sign interpretation than to try to do it in an ad hoc manner with insufficiently qualified or experienced signers. The Council noted that the cost of providing sign interpreters on a commercial basis had been estimated to be around £800. No proposal was forthcoming to vote this sum as an addition to the AGM budget. David Hickling therefore proposed, and Eddie Jones seconded, a motion that the status quo should apply. Carried unanimously The Chairman said that he would again be happy to issue the text of his speech in advance to deaf Members who were attending. He asked that, once the draft programme was available, the deaf Members should be consulted to find out which seminars they wished, as a group, to attend, so that the office could contact the presenters to ask them to arrange for their seminars to be as accessible as possible. Action: BPA Office The seminars are given free of charge, so the deaf community are paying out nothing, along with the rest of the community, and the presenters attempt to make their seminars as accessible as possible. Mark Callend practically had everything he said on his PowerPoint, but then Allan probably knew all of it anyway. With regards to membership and insurance costs, you can not compare US with us. It's just not possible. The costs and markets are totally different. How many alternative insurance solutions have you found and suggested to the Council? It's very easy to go online and moan, but doing something about it is another thing. Why not stand for Council next year and try to be part of the solution? Have you ever offered your services in regards to the BPA website? If you could do it cheaper, then maybe there would be money for other things. The insurance company KNOW they are the only people that will cover us and a lot of that is due to our "good history" with them. I will accept that I am not an expert in this, and I have to accept what I am told by people who are and people I trust, but they are not trying to "fuck us over". They are trying to make a reasonable profit (at the insurance forum, the broker said that motor insurance companies would be very happy to make 1-5% profit...and that is on 17 million vehicles in this country, although he didn't say how much our underwriter wanted to make). Is that so unfair? At the moment they are loosing. Why should they subsidise recklessness or the compensation culture?Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites mattair 0 #19 January 26, 2005 I'm also an overseas only jumper now. I don't think it's possible to get temporary 'just visiting' membership after you've been a full member. I asked and the CCI said BPA wouldn't allow it even though i've got an overseas address. I won't be renewing my membership until it goes down considerably and realistically i don't see that happening. I think they should just scrap the magazine all together. It's all gloss and no content and compares poorly against USPA's magazine and Skydiving Magazine. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites rsibbald 0 #20 January 26, 2005 The magazine cost is negligible when compared with the insurance premium. Please bear in mind that if the BPA ever loses its insurance, the CAA would have to regulate sport parachuting instead. (That would be very bad!) Look at it this way, if you jump fairly regularly, it's only ~£1 a jump to cover yourself from all sorts of legal fees that could wreck your life. Whinging solves nothing. You can help by either: 1. Persuading any skydivers who are selfish enough to sue other skydivers that they are only damaging the sport for everyone, along with their reputation. 2. Trying to find another insurance underwriter for the BPA. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites mattair 0 #21 January 26, 2005 Yeah, the magazine is negligible in the scheme of things but it still represents a slice of the overall pie. It's a sad state of affairs when we get to the stage that people decide their best option is to leave the country for a jump. How are you working it out at around £1 per jump? You're assuming the average UK jumper does 111 jumps per year!!? When I was living in California that was a realistic target. With UK weather and the UK price of jumps I'm not so sure. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites tilly 0 #22 January 26, 2005 It's not that many - I did 120 last year and I could have done loads more in terms of the weather and stuff - only 10 jumps a month. I did not because I am super skint. But I think a lot of people do at least that. I'm not saying the whole issue is right or wrong - just feel like arguing! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites skykittykat 0 #23 January 26, 2005 QuoteI think they should just scrap the magazine all together. It's all gloss and no content and compares poorly against USPA's magazine and Skydiving Magazine. The Mag is brilliant. I must disagree with there being no content - I don't know what you mean by "no content" but personally I find it educational and fun. It is great to see what is happening in the UK (especially as I am living overseas). Most of my American friends here love the Skydive Mag way over the USPA Mag. Skydiving Magazine is totally different as it is subscriber only and not part of a country's membership. One example was the issue covering the World Championships in Brazil and Croatia. The reports not only focused on the British teams, but also the winners and the photos rocked. USPA's coverage was shockingly bad. I actually gave 2 copies of the Mag to friends who live here and who had competed for the US/Japan and they were stoked by the overall reporting and photos. We also get sent the minutes of the council meetings, which is something that the USPA does not do. Basically the Mag is there to keep British skydivers informed of what is going on in British and world skydiving. In fact, the only people I hear whinge about the Mag are Brits!!! I have a solution - if people are not happy with the Mag, then write to Lesley with suggestions. Liz Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Zoter 0 #24 January 26, 2005 Dont fuck up...... Keep your eyes open and help others from doing the same... Less Insurance claims= cheaper Insurance premiums (yes it will take a few years to prove the model) Cheaper Insurance=Cheaper BPA membership ( and they will be absolutley slaughtered if they try and get pass that one) How do you get less insurance claims ???? go look at the Incident reports and find out your number one cause of 'problems'.......then congratulate / harass the council to get the Canopy Grading system up and running like yesterday. From what I heard , lots of people are not ahppy about the specific structure.....and this is where (I feel) the BPA have a responsibility to put all available resources and efforts into getting a working system up and running very soon. 'We' are paying now for the lack of canopy training and aggresive trend of downsizing that has hardly any BPA official 'rules'.......fix that...hopefully we fix the biggest problem to our BPA costs Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Jumpmunki 0 #25 January 26, 2005 everyone, i'm really sorry for my post bitching about the bpa. i was really annoyed at the time i posted it about various things. the BPA is at no fault with most of it's decisions it's mainly because of the whole rip off britain culture. jumpers sueing jumpers? i say we go to whoever it is who is doing it and have a word. insurance is a ripoff at the best of times, but as soon as the company that is covering all of us as members realises they are the only one that will cover it the cost will go up and up again. craig, i'm sorry again for having a bitch, but i feel like everything about UK skydiving is expensive. i don't feel the mag is of benefit to me particularly and also feel that if the people who didn't want it opted out then they wouldn't have to get so many produced. i have alot of deaf jumpers who have been really annoyed that an interpreter wasn't provided when it could have been. while the bpa asked for someone to do it for them on the cheap i think that if the budget was spent on things that were actually benficial for the members i wouldn't mind paying it. but the only benfit i have seen from my membership is a magazine. again bitching and shouting isn't really a way to get a point across and i apologise for that, however i do feel that the uk skydiving community could club together with the bpa as backing and start making a difference too drive down the costs of insurance and other related things and in turn the bpa having to put the membership costs years on year in order to cover it. what i was annoyed with was seeing something int he statement last year about a four figure sum being given to create a display or something in the office? and money being shovelled into a website that is very hard to navigate and find things on ... it's hard not to get upset craig y'know and i understand problem or solution.. it's just very hard to get a point across for me to anyone. if i had the time to dedicate to the council i would stand, but i have too many of my own personal things to sort out before i can start helping others. again all i really want is for uk jumpers (and attached associations) to be stop getting took to the cleaners. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Prev 1 2 Next Page 1 of 2 Join the conversation You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Reply to this topic... × Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead Only 75 emoji are allowed. × Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead × Your previous content has been restored. Clear editor × You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL. Insert image from URL × Desktop Tablet Phone Submit Reply 0 Go To Topic Listing
Jumpmunki 0 #17 January 25, 2005 well i'm not going to renew my membership this year, i'm going to jump when i go abroad, i think i'll be moving to america, getting USPA membership then "visiting the uk" for a while" i also think they should make the "MAG" from the membership an option, i personnally think it's a waste of money while we're on the subject of membership. the BPA has failed on more than one occasion to provide Deaf Interpreters for the AGM and other events organised by them. This means that the deaf uk skydiving community is paying out that same as hearing members but can't simply attend the AGM seminars etc. essentially all they are getting for there money is a mag and insurance. it boils my piss to see so much money pumped into a website (which i personnally could have done a better job on) and a display for in the BPA office, when all they had to do was pay a couple of interpreters about £300 for a one off to keep the deaf skydiving community upto date with what is happening. they pay there money, they should get exactly the same as you or I do from the bpa. the bpa in my opinion is getting far too cocky increasing it's charges for compulsary membership. when you look at the cost of joining the USPA compared to ours.......... it's a joke..... yes and before people start, i KNOW it's the insurance premium that has gone up.... not eh membership part....... but as soon as the insurance company realise they are our only hope they'll keep fucking us over every year putting the price up and up and up... it's a piss take Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cpoxon 0 #18 January 26, 2005 Your attitude "boils my piss"! If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. You need to get your priorities straight. You bitch about the BPA not paying out for expensive services for the benefit of 3 (?) members, yet you want to take action that would be to the detriment to all skydivers in the UK (not being a member of the BPA or opting out of the magazine makes it more expensive for the rest of us). With regards to the interpreters, this is from the minutes of the Council meeting held on the 19th of October 2004: Quote63/04 Sign interpreters at the AGM 2005 The Office had reported that no offers to provide a sign interpretation service at the AGM had come forward in response to the calls made in the August and October Magazines and on the BPA website. A letter of caution from a sign interpreter was summarised, which highlighted the high-level signing skills that would be necessary for an event such as the AGM and that it was, in her informed view, better not to provide sign interpretation than to try to do it in an ad hoc manner with insufficiently qualified or experienced signers. The Council noted that the cost of providing sign interpreters on a commercial basis had been estimated to be around £800. No proposal was forthcoming to vote this sum as an addition to the AGM budget. David Hickling therefore proposed, and Eddie Jones seconded, a motion that the status quo should apply. Carried unanimously The Chairman said that he would again be happy to issue the text of his speech in advance to deaf Members who were attending. He asked that, once the draft programme was available, the deaf Members should be consulted to find out which seminars they wished, as a group, to attend, so that the office could contact the presenters to ask them to arrange for their seminars to be as accessible as possible. Action: BPA Office The seminars are given free of charge, so the deaf community are paying out nothing, along with the rest of the community, and the presenters attempt to make their seminars as accessible as possible. Mark Callend practically had everything he said on his PowerPoint, but then Allan probably knew all of it anyway. With regards to membership and insurance costs, you can not compare US with us. It's just not possible. The costs and markets are totally different. How many alternative insurance solutions have you found and suggested to the Council? It's very easy to go online and moan, but doing something about it is another thing. Why not stand for Council next year and try to be part of the solution? Have you ever offered your services in regards to the BPA website? If you could do it cheaper, then maybe there would be money for other things. The insurance company KNOW they are the only people that will cover us and a lot of that is due to our "good history" with them. I will accept that I am not an expert in this, and I have to accept what I am told by people who are and people I trust, but they are not trying to "fuck us over". They are trying to make a reasonable profit (at the insurance forum, the broker said that motor insurance companies would be very happy to make 1-5% profit...and that is on 17 million vehicles in this country, although he didn't say how much our underwriter wanted to make). Is that so unfair? At the moment they are loosing. Why should they subsidise recklessness or the compensation culture?Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mattair 0 #19 January 26, 2005 I'm also an overseas only jumper now. I don't think it's possible to get temporary 'just visiting' membership after you've been a full member. I asked and the CCI said BPA wouldn't allow it even though i've got an overseas address. I won't be renewing my membership until it goes down considerably and realistically i don't see that happening. I think they should just scrap the magazine all together. It's all gloss and no content and compares poorly against USPA's magazine and Skydiving Magazine. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rsibbald 0 #20 January 26, 2005 The magazine cost is negligible when compared with the insurance premium. Please bear in mind that if the BPA ever loses its insurance, the CAA would have to regulate sport parachuting instead. (That would be very bad!) Look at it this way, if you jump fairly regularly, it's only ~£1 a jump to cover yourself from all sorts of legal fees that could wreck your life. Whinging solves nothing. You can help by either: 1. Persuading any skydivers who are selfish enough to sue other skydivers that they are only damaging the sport for everyone, along with their reputation. 2. Trying to find another insurance underwriter for the BPA. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mattair 0 #21 January 26, 2005 Yeah, the magazine is negligible in the scheme of things but it still represents a slice of the overall pie. It's a sad state of affairs when we get to the stage that people decide their best option is to leave the country for a jump. How are you working it out at around £1 per jump? You're assuming the average UK jumper does 111 jumps per year!!? When I was living in California that was a realistic target. With UK weather and the UK price of jumps I'm not so sure. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tilly 0 #22 January 26, 2005 It's not that many - I did 120 last year and I could have done loads more in terms of the weather and stuff - only 10 jumps a month. I did not because I am super skint. But I think a lot of people do at least that. I'm not saying the whole issue is right or wrong - just feel like arguing! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skykittykat 0 #23 January 26, 2005 QuoteI think they should just scrap the magazine all together. It's all gloss and no content and compares poorly against USPA's magazine and Skydiving Magazine. The Mag is brilliant. I must disagree with there being no content - I don't know what you mean by "no content" but personally I find it educational and fun. It is great to see what is happening in the UK (especially as I am living overseas). Most of my American friends here love the Skydive Mag way over the USPA Mag. Skydiving Magazine is totally different as it is subscriber only and not part of a country's membership. One example was the issue covering the World Championships in Brazil and Croatia. The reports not only focused on the British teams, but also the winners and the photos rocked. USPA's coverage was shockingly bad. I actually gave 2 copies of the Mag to friends who live here and who had competed for the US/Japan and they were stoked by the overall reporting and photos. We also get sent the minutes of the council meetings, which is something that the USPA does not do. Basically the Mag is there to keep British skydivers informed of what is going on in British and world skydiving. In fact, the only people I hear whinge about the Mag are Brits!!! I have a solution - if people are not happy with the Mag, then write to Lesley with suggestions. Liz Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zoter 0 #24 January 26, 2005 Dont fuck up...... Keep your eyes open and help others from doing the same... Less Insurance claims= cheaper Insurance premiums (yes it will take a few years to prove the model) Cheaper Insurance=Cheaper BPA membership ( and they will be absolutley slaughtered if they try and get pass that one) How do you get less insurance claims ???? go look at the Incident reports and find out your number one cause of 'problems'.......then congratulate / harass the council to get the Canopy Grading system up and running like yesterday. From what I heard , lots of people are not ahppy about the specific structure.....and this is where (I feel) the BPA have a responsibility to put all available resources and efforts into getting a working system up and running very soon. 'We' are paying now for the lack of canopy training and aggresive trend of downsizing that has hardly any BPA official 'rules'.......fix that...hopefully we fix the biggest problem to our BPA costs Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jumpmunki 0 #25 January 26, 2005 everyone, i'm really sorry for my post bitching about the bpa. i was really annoyed at the time i posted it about various things. the BPA is at no fault with most of it's decisions it's mainly because of the whole rip off britain culture. jumpers sueing jumpers? i say we go to whoever it is who is doing it and have a word. insurance is a ripoff at the best of times, but as soon as the company that is covering all of us as members realises they are the only one that will cover it the cost will go up and up again. craig, i'm sorry again for having a bitch, but i feel like everything about UK skydiving is expensive. i don't feel the mag is of benefit to me particularly and also feel that if the people who didn't want it opted out then they wouldn't have to get so many produced. i have alot of deaf jumpers who have been really annoyed that an interpreter wasn't provided when it could have been. while the bpa asked for someone to do it for them on the cheap i think that if the budget was spent on things that were actually benficial for the members i wouldn't mind paying it. but the only benfit i have seen from my membership is a magazine. again bitching and shouting isn't really a way to get a point across and i apologise for that, however i do feel that the uk skydiving community could club together with the bpa as backing and start making a difference too drive down the costs of insurance and other related things and in turn the bpa having to put the membership costs years on year in order to cover it. what i was annoyed with was seeing something int he statement last year about a four figure sum being given to create a display or something in the office? and money being shovelled into a website that is very hard to navigate and find things on ... it's hard not to get upset craig y'know and i understand problem or solution.. it's just very hard to get a point across for me to anyone. if i had the time to dedicate to the council i would stand, but i have too many of my own personal things to sort out before i can start helping others. again all i really want is for uk jumpers (and attached associations) to be stop getting took to the cleaners. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
